September can so often be one of the best months of the year and this year the beginning of the month really was fabulous so, with the weather forecast for the week looking good, I hitched up my caravan and drove 40 miles down to a lovely campsite at St Erth, close to Hayle.
St Michael’s Way, which goes from Lelant church to St Michael’s Mount, has been a walk that I have thought about doing for a year or two so, having packed a picnic for me and Eddie, we drove to Lelant Saltings and parked in the old park and ride car park for the St Erth-St Ives branch line.
The saltings are the salt marshes that flood twice a day when the tide comes in. It is an excellent place for bird watching and the sound of the birds is a lovely thing to hear, especially the wonderful curlew, which has to be my personal favourite.
A short walk uphill brings you up to Lelant church which has a really good view of Hayle and the estuary. It is also the official start of this walk and it’s generally possible to pick up a small passport and stamp it in the church, adding further stamps at four other churches along the route, with the last one on St Michael’s Mount. When I was there the passports had run out and the ink in the stamp was dry, so that was the end of that.
St Michael’s Way, like the Saint’s Way, is an old route that was used by pilgrims from Ireland making their way to Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain and the shrine of St James at the cathedral there. Neither me nor Eddie are pilgrims but we both enjoy a good walk and that’s exactly what this was.
Leaving Lelant church we walked along the South West Coast Path behind Porthkidney beach. The colours were amazing, with golden sands below and Hayle beach stretching away to Gwithian, the sea was the most beautiful blue with the whole scene looking like a postcard or a holiday brochure. After a while we came along to Carbis Bay and I overheard several people trying to work out which room Boris Johnson might have stayed in when the G7 summit was held there. To be quite honest I really didn’t care as the view was far more interesting.
The path started to climb uphill, turning inland and away from the sea, eventually coming up to Knill’s Monument (above), a 50ft memorial to John Knill, mayor of St Ives in 1767 and who regularly walked up to take in the wonderful view. Nowadays it seems to be a popular dog walking area, judging by the number of those awful little dog poo bushes bearing numerous plastic poo bags! Heading away from the monument it was instantly quieter and cleaner and I had to walk on the wrong side of the road so that Eddie could walk in the shade at the bottom of the hedge. The trail left the Tarmac road and continued along enclosed footpaths and shady lanes for several miles, apart from crossing a main road at Bowl Rock which, as its name suggests, looks like it was turned out of a perfectly round pudding bowl.
Continuing around the bottom of Trencrom Hill we came to Ninnes Bridge, a lovely hamlet with a Primitive Methodist Chapel which has been converted to a dwelling with generous gardens. The footpath and a stream ran alongside and a little further on we sat in the shade of a hawthorn tree and ate our picnic. It was a good spot to stop as Eddie could stand his hot feet in the cool water of the stream – though typically he prefers the muddier bits! The route is extremely well signposted and the stiles and old tracks well maintained, which is always appreciated, and we were never far from a stream or river so Eddie had plenty of opportunities to drink.
After a while and a bit of road walking the path entered a field on the right-hand side at the top of a hill and that was a real WOW!! moment as the view of Mount’s Bay opened out in front of me. I couldn’t have ordered any better weather and the colours of the sky, the sea and the green fields were amazing, so I just sat down on the grass and soaked in the view.
The pathway came down the steep field to another stream, crossed by an ancient granite bridge, then up the other side, through woods, to come out at the church of St Paul’s at Ludgvan. In the village the path splits, with the right-hand route going to Gulval, then along the promenade and back to Marazion, which would have been busy with cyclists, the main road and the train line running alongside.
I chose to turn left and went downhill to level fields before crossing the A30, then walking at the edge of a small wood before crossing another busy main road, the A394 to Helston, and entering Marazion Marsh where the path now goes along raised boardwalks which would be essential in a wet time. It also crosses the Penzance to Paddington main railway line.
We came out and crossed the road to walk along the pavement behind the beach, which was full of people sunbathing and making the most of the September sunshine and it was certainly a day worth waiting for.
Erica